Come uncover methods to guard garlic. When accurately dried and cured, modern garlic should ultimate for lots of months in cool dry storage. Nevertheless what happens when it begins to go harmful? Or, when you occur to reap homegrown garlic too early, so it might’t be cured and saved future? Don’t let it go to waste!
This submit will highlight various easy strategies to guard garlic from the yard: how one can dry garlic into powder, freeze it, pickle it, make fermented honey garlic, and additional. Choice is the spice of life, in any case!
I’ll moreover cowl the hidden dangers of preserving garlic in olive oil, why garlic typically turns blue, and the simplest strategy to retailer garlic to make it ultimate.
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RELATED: In a position to develop your private? Come uncover methods to plant and develop garlic in our easy step-by-step info, or go to this textual content for tips on when and how one can harvest, treatment and retailer garlic to make it ultimate!
Retailer Garlic
- For max shelf life, it’s most interesting to retailer garlic at room temperature in a cool, dry, darkish location akin to a pantry, root cellar, basement, or spare closet. The optimum storage temperature for garlic is 50-60°F.
- Steer clear of refrigerating garlic, as colder temperatures stimulates the garlic to break dormancy and start sprouting. Garlic sprouts shortly between 40-50°F.
- Retailer garlic in an open container to promote good airflow and dry circumstances, akin to a mesh bag, woven basket, wire racks, or open cardboard discipline (nonetheless not in a deep pile).
- The time garlic lasts in storage relies upon upon the type, choice, and storage circumstances. After harvesting and curing garlic, hardneck varieties should ultimate about 3 to 4 months in storage, whereas softneck varieties can ultimate 6 to 9 months.
- Routinely take a look at on your saved bulbs and gives them a squeeze. Use or shield any that are starting to go comfy or sprout. Certain, it’s okay to eat garlic that has sprouted – or plant it!
1) Dried Garlic Powder
Making selfmade garlic powder is one in every of my favorite strategies to guard garlic. It’s easy to do, versatile to utilize, and the flavour is extraordinarily modern compared with another garlic powder you’ll ever try. We wish to sprinkle garlic powder on prime of sautéed or roasted veggies, in dips, soups, sauces, pasta, bread dough and additional.
You could dry garlic in a meals dehydrator or throughout the oven, then grind it into great powder using a wonderful blender or meals processor. As quickly as dehydrated and ground, garlic powder will ultimate successfully over a yr in dry storage! Plus it condenses plenty of garlic into one small jar, which is a giant space saver. You may too mix 1 half dried garlic powder with 3 components sea salt to make DIY garlic salt.
See full instructions on how one can make garlic powder proper right here.
2) Freezing Garlic
Freezing garlic is among the many most quick and easy strategies to guard it. You could freeze garlic cloves full, raw, roasted, minced, in olive oil… any method you like it!
- To freeze full garlic cloves raw, merely peel and pack them into freezer-safe containers akin to ziplock baggage, reusable silicone meals storage baggage, or these sturdy BPA-free freezer containers. To utilize frozen garlic, you can grate the frozen cloves or allow them to barely defrost at room temperature sooner than chopping or in some other case preparing them. Frozen garlic cloves are good for as a lot as a yr throughout the freezer.
- You may too mince garlic to freeze plain or in olive oil. To create the right ready-to-use components, I wish to finely chop garlic (or use a helpful garlic press), pack it into silicone ice cube trays, pour olive oil in to fill each each cube, after which freeze. As quickly as frozen, pop the garlic oil cubes out of the tray to retailer collectively in a sealed freezer bag or container. Then they’re in a position to toss proper right into a pan of stir fry, sauce, or soup at any time.
3) Fermented Garlic Honey
Proper right here is one different inconceivable approach to guard garlic, and create your private delicious chilly and flu medicine while you’re at it!
Fermented garlic honey is a simple pure effectively being remedy that is used to assist the immune system, cardiovascular system, and digestive effectively being. It’d moreover help soothe chilly and flu indicators along with coughs or sore throats.
Garlic honey is very simple to make: merely pour honey over raw garlic cloves and let it sit to ferment awhile. As quickly as made, it lasts for a number of years throughout the pantry. You could eat it by the spoonful, add it to selfmade salad dressing, dips or marinades, drizzle it over roasted greens, cheese and crackers, and additional!
See full instructions in our easy fermented garlic honey recipe along with further strategies to utilize it.
4) Pickled Garlic
Pickling garlic in a vinegar brine is an efficient strategy to shield modern garlic. Because of garlic is a naturally low-acid meals, there are no safe examined recipes for canning garlic alone (with out vinegar).
You too can make quick pickled garlic that may ultimate a few months throughout the fridge, or observe a pickled garlic recipe that is safe for water tub canning to make it shelf-stable for over yr. We significantly love pickled garlic with apple cider vinegar, dill, mustard seeds and pink chili flakes.
Mellowed by the vinegar and spices, pickled garlic has a further tangy, sweet, and mildly spicy style than sharp raw garlic. It is the superb addition to selfmade dips, spreads, salad dressings, or charcuterie boards. Serve it with olives, cheese, crackers, sandwiches and additional. Pickled garlic (or the brine) might also be utilized in cocktails like Bloody Marys or dirty martinis, or in numerous recipes that requires modern garlic, akin to in vegetable stir fry, pasta salad, soup or stew. Or, snack on it straight out of the jar!
5) Lacto-Fermented Garlic
One remaining method you can shield garlic is to ferment it. Fermented garlic is very like pickling it, nonetheless with out the vinegar – and with added nutritional vitamins and probiotics! We’re massive followers of fermented meals spherical proper right here, and fermented garlic isn’t any exception.
Made by submerging raw garlic cloves in a dilute salt water brine, pure helpful micro organism ferments the garlic and produces lactic acid that lowers the pH, efficiently preserving it. When fermented, the garlic develops increasingly tangy, mild, and sophisticated flavors compared with raw. The lacto-fermentation course of moreover introduces tens of thousands and thousands of gut-healthy probiotics, and makes the entire spectacular dietary nutritional vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and totally different nutritional vitamins current in garlic even easier to digest.
Proper right here is one widespread fermented garlic recipe, or check out this totally different risk too.
Can you shield garlic in olive oil?
Did you moreover develop up seeing pretty bottles of olive oil with garlic cloves floating in them? As nostalgic or tasty because it might seem, please don’t be tempted to guard your private garlic in olive oil at residence! It isn’t safe. Or when you occur to do, proceed at your private hazard.
Submerging garlic in oil creates an anaerobic ambiance (with out air) and one with a neutral pH. This creates the right recipe for botulism to develop – and you will’t see, scent, or model botulism!
Deadly botulism toxins are attributable to micro organism often called Clostridium botulinum, which is often current in soil. Since garlic bulbs develop beneath the soil ground, garlic is at a good bigger hazard for botulism than many alternative greens. Industrial producers of garlic oil have strict requirements in order so as to add acidifying brokers and totally different preservatives to forestall the growth of botulism.
Blue Garlic
Garlic may flip blue, purple, or inexperienced when it’s pickled, fermented and even cooked. It’s attributable to a pure response that occurs when enzymes in garlic can be found in touch with one factor acidic, akin to vinegar, fermentation brine or lemon juice. Nonetheless, blue garlic continues to be totally fit to be eaten!
And that concludes this lesson on preserving garlic. I hope this submit gave you a great deal of new and interesting points to try. Which methodology do you want to try first? Did I miss another ideas? Please inform us throughout the suggestions beneath. Thanks so much for tuning in proper now.
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